Building Medieval Plate Armor: An Operator’s Guide Dr. Tobias Capwell

Early in 2014, Chivalry Today’s program director and podcast host Scott Farrell was asked to coordinate a series of presentations for Dr. Tobias Capwell, arms and armor curator at London’s Wallace Collection (who was going to be in the area in October for the 2014 Tournament of the Phoenix). On the schedule were lectures on images of Classical armor in medieval manuscripts (given at the Getty Center in Los Angeles), the excavation of the skeleton of Richard III (given in San Diego for the San Diego Shakespeare Society and friends), and a talk on the practical design and function of Late Medieval armor, given specifically for an audience of HEMA students and “living history” enthusiasts (as well as for what turned out to be a very large audience of eager college students who undoubtedly thought that getting a bit of extra credit for attending a lecture on knightly armor by a world-renowned expert sounded pretty darned interesting).

Although the 700+ seats in the theater where Dr. Capwell gave his talk were mostly full (afterwards he said he thought it was the largest audience he ever spoke to), we know there were a lot of Chivalry Today’s listeners who had other plans, or just couldn’t get to the Southern California area to attend the presentation. Not to worry! Chivalry Today was allowed to record the talk, and now, along with some photos taken by several audience members, we present Dr. Capwell’s talk for our fans all over the world to enjoy!

(We know there is plenty of interest in Dr. Capwell’s other talks too … We are currently looking into making those available as well.)